Seasons Change

Autumn again.  It's a beautiful season in My Corner of the Ozarks.  

The fall colors reveal the season.  

But dry weather earlier probably resulted in a "duller" color to our hills this year.  





We moved back (home) to the Ozarks 13 years ago.  I had never hunted turkeys in the fall before that.  Spring gobbler turkey hunting is "easier" than finding and calling turkeys in the fall.  I hunted in Illinois in spring and I often traveled to Missouri to hunt in spring with Dad.  But not until we moved here did fall turkey hunting seem likely to be worth the effort.

This is actually a gobbler shot in the spring.  I've since shot five turkeys in the fall season, but no one bothers to take pictures of 8-10 pound juveniles.  When we moved to My Corner of the Ozarks, it became possible to have a chance to harvest a turkey in the fall.  My personal scout always knew where the flocks were feeding and moving when the October season began.  

One October on opening day, my scout told me to sit in a certain fence row and watch for a hen and brood to enter the field from the woods. Sure enough they marched out in front of me with the mother hen leading them all in a row.  I was able to get a double that day.  (Yes.  Two in the same day is legal in the fall.)  

I did not get a permit or go afield this past October.  I have lost my trustworthy scout.  It is just not the same.  In the spring of his 89th year he shot his 68th wild turkey.  Me?  I'm still trying to find Number 21.